Ahimsa at the center: vows, communities, and seasonal reflection.
What the Acaranga Sutra, the Kalpa Sutra, and later Digambara biographies say about Mahavira's life, where the two Jain traditions agree, where they part, and why their differences follow doctrine.
What a Tirthankara is, why there are exactly twenty-four in each half of the Jain time cycle, how to tell their images apart, and why Jains worship teachers who can no longer answer.
The Jain teaching that reality has many sides, how syadvada's sevenfold predication and the theory of standpoints work, where the elephant parable comes from, and why it matters now.
Ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya, and aparigraha, what the five vows mean, how the Tattvartha Sutra defines them, and how lay Jains scale them for household life.
How ahimsa shapes Jain diet from root vegetables and sunset meals to fasting and diaspora adaptations, and why food ethics sit at the center of daily practice.
How Jainism's two great traditions took shape, the famine and migration stories, the real doctrinal differences, the two canons, and what both streams still share.
How Jain teaching turns non-harm into a whole way of life, from the classical definition of violence in the Tattvartha Sutra to diet, livelihood, and the season of forgiveness.
Jainism is one of the world's oldest continuously practised ethical traditions. Its 24 Tirthankaras ("ford-makers") culminate in Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha. Although Jains are a small community, mostly in western India and the diaspora, their ideas about non-violence and humility in knowledge have shaped Indian life far beyond their numbers.
For the most important annual observance, a season of fasting and mutual forgiveness, read Paryushana. Dates differ between Svetambara and Digambara communities; our festival calendar lists both.
